Why Leadership Alone Won't Grow Your Church: A Conversation with Doug Witherup

Aaron Santmyire: 00:00:10

Hey there and welcome back to the Clarity Podcast. This podcast is all about providing clarity insight and encouragement for life and mission. And my name is Aaron Santmyire and I get to be your host.

Today we have the phenomenal opportunity to have with us on The Podcast Pastor Dr. Doug Witherup. He's a pastor in Charlotte, North Carolina at Multiply Church.

We got to spend some time with him a few weeks ago, months ago, and just thought he'd be great to have on the podcast. And so we get to sit down and discuss interrobang preaching.

Never heard of the word interrobang until our conversation in Charlotte and just thought it'd be great. So we talk about. He kind of bends our minds. So if you've ever lived overseas or Maybe even the U.S. this idea of SIM cards for your cell phones.

But he gives an idea of what a SIM card can be for an interrobang preaching method. And this shares the points on that.

We talk about what it takes to be a great storyteller and creating the attitude of expectancy when we're, when we're sharing and preaching, have the opportunity for the gospel, to share the gospel. Just some points honestly that I've put in into practice since talking to Dr.

Doug and just learning from him on the importance of when we have the opportunity to share the gospel, to begin to share the seeds of expectancy. That's God's presence is there. God's going to show up and the realities of that.

So really, you'll really enjoy spending some time and learning from Dr. Doug today. Do want to ask you to continue to subscribe to the podcast. I know the podcasts I've subscribed to.

They're the ones I listen to show up on my feed every Monday or Tuesday. And many of you have been listening in for years. The podcast is up over 300 episodes and 100,000 downloads.

And grateful and thankful for those who are listening in and continue to share with our family and friends. Do want to ask you to send in your questions for backchannel with Foth.

That's where we get to sit down with Dick and get to learn from him from his years of ministry, both as a pastor and then in D.C. and then back to pastoring.

And Dick is somebody that shares his friends and has wisdom and insight and just a joy to spend some time with Dick on Bachelor. Well, there's no time better than notting it started. So here we go. Greetings and welcome back to the Clarity Podcast.

So excited to be here with a new friend of the podcast, Pastor Douglas Doug, welcome to the podcast.

Doug Witherup: 00:02:30

Thank you so much. Aaron, excited to be here.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:02:33

Will you share a little bit about yourself?

We got to spend some time together in Charlotte at an urban tribes meeting, and I learned more about race car driving and all the things that I will never be able to do. But it was fun to get to be with you at your church.

For somebody that did not have that opportunity, will you share a little bit about yourself before I start asking you some questions?

Doug Witherup: 00:02:54

Absolutely. So I am the senior pastor of the Multiply family of churches and we're headquartered, like you said, in Charlotte, North Carolina.

It is home of all things nascar. So, so Concord, which is right outside of Charlotte.

I tell people we're on the, we're kind of on the borderline of good old boy south and all of us Yankee transplants. And I'm one, I am one of those Yankee transplants. So When I was 5, I got converted to Jesus. When I was 25, I got converted to the South.

I married a Southern belle. There are still times we will look over the dinner table at each other and say, babe, what did you say?

Did you pen Pen y'all yens like we got, we got all of those things. So. But, but this is home. I love it. I'm all in nascar barbecue, sun drop, sweet tea like, let's go. But so multiply church.

Just a little bit of history there. We are 66 years old and we're kind of now in our third generation, so we've only had three senior pastors in 60 year history, which is pretty cool.

So on my inauguration Sunday, which would have been eight years ago, our founding pastor, who would be like a spiritual grandfather to me, preached the first part of the message. Then Pastor Rick Ross, who's now the national secretary treasurer for the Assemblies of God. So he preached the second part of the message.

And he's like a spiritual father to me. And then they got to pass the baton to Camden and I. So we have the honor of just pastoring.

I'm a little biased, but I think one, just one of the great churches of our movement. And so we have what we call a family of churches model, which is a little bit different than campus, not better, worse, just different.

And so we say, we say it like this, of a campus model, says one church, many locations. We say we're one family, many churches. So it's a collective and apostolic collective of churches who are coming together to plant the gospel.

And so I've been here now for, for 27 years. I came as an intern right out of southeastern college and been here for. It's the only church that I've known post Bible college. So.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:05:16

Quite amazing. Yeah, quite amazing. And the. The value of a cumulative effect of ministry. And I interviewed Alan Tennyson and he talked about that sometimes we.

Two or three years and we switch. Two or three years and we switch and we miss that. What you're sharing about the c.

Cumulative effect of ministry and the day in, the day out and as they would say in sports stacking days. But if you move on and you move out, you know it, you miss that. They miss that aspect. So thank you for your faithfulness, for sure.

Doug Witherup: 00:05:45

Thank you so sure.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:05:46

So first question I have for you, leadership does not. You share in your book. Leadership does not grow the church. The preaching of the gospel grows the church. Can you share about that?

Doug Witherup: 00:05:58

Yeah, absolutely. So I think at face value, right, that could maybe a little bit of a shocking statement.

And let me just preface it by saying, my goodness, I'm not anti leadership. So I'm not throwing shade on, but I just, I go back to the book of Acts, right? So the early church was thriving, growing, multiplying.

And Acts chapter six, you have quite a. Quite an ordeal. It leads to almost the first church split. And if you remember the issue it was, it was that the widows were not getting fed.

So there was a racial issue, there was a social justice issue and there was a leadership issue. And raise your hand if those sound familiar over the last 25 years of the church. Right. And rightly so, we've walked through a number of those.

But what's interesting to me is the response of the apostles is they say we're going to make sure that we give our time to prayer and the preaching of the word. So that's in Acts 6, 4 and then in verse 7 that the church rapidly grew. Yeah.

And I would just, I would just throw out there, what if, what if verse seven is connected to their decision there? And hey, we know as pastors we can get pulled. We. It's easy to get pulled into all of the peripherals. Right.

We could spend a week just dealing with leadership issues.

Again, it's not that leadership is unimportant, but I just, I believe that there's a pattern there established biblically that hey, for the apostolic leader of the church, their main job, our main job is prayer and preaching. And that's what, that's what grows the church. We can develop, we can make all the nurseries we want.

But if we don't have babies, then there's A problem there.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:07:52

Good word. And what I loved about that in the book was this, the returning back to the spiritual nature of what we do.

The reality of it is we are spiritual people with a spiritual mission, spiritual goal. And the preaching of the Word is part of that. I'm not saying leadership is not spiritual.

I did appreciate that and bringing it back to the preaching of God's Word and the realities of it. So it's good stuff. You know, sometimes I think, you know, I've interluded, interviewed a lot of people in leadership in the church.

You know, we've been concentrating on the last 20, 25 years in the church. But I don't know, I've, like, as you said, if we, if we can't move away from the preaching of the Word because it's both together and just. Excellent.

So you developed in your book, you talk about a different type of preaching. Could you share about what that was the first time I'd ever heard the word.

I consider myself a little bit, somewhat educated, and I am from West Virginia, but somewhat educated, a new word I had never heard of. Will you share about that and how you describe that type of preaching?

Doug Witherup: 00:08:55

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So let me preface it by saying when I talk about a new kind of preaching, what I'm talking about is the old is new again.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:09:05

Right.

Doug Witherup: 00:09:06

So what I did here was the study behind it. And then I'll explain this in terebang Word. So the study behind it was me and Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and a notepad.

And I just started out with a question. Okay, if Jesus was the best preacher ever, Jesus was the best communicator ever. What did he do?

And I just went through every preaching narrative of Jesus through the gospels. There's about 144 of them. You could argue that plus or minus, depending on how you, how you group them together. But. But about 144 of those.

And what I found was Simply this, that 60% of the time Jesus was preaching, he was telling stories. 40% of the time that Jesus was preaching, he was asking questions. And then 80% of the time he was preaching, he was leading people into an encounter.

So there was either a miracle moment there or a decisive call to action. Let me pause there. So here's the quick history of what an interrobang is.

nted by Martin K. Specter. In: 1961

And so: 1961

And we just gone through the Cuban Missile crisis, space exploration. And so Spectre wanted to communicate this idea of enthusiastic discovery. Like, that's the era we were in, this era of enthusiastic discovery.

He's like, how do I communicate that with punctuation? So he typed a question mark. Remember the old typewriters? You and I are about the same age. We remember these.

Some of your younger viewers will have to Google what a typewriter is. But he typed a question mark, hit backspace, overlaid and exclamat point over that and called it an interrobang.

So again, they invented the first punctuation mark in over 100 years. And I saw that and I was like, oh my goodness, that's my metaphor. Like that. I just, I just love that symbol.

Because when I read through these preaching narratives of Jesus, he wasn't just giving information to people, he was leading them on a. On a journey. Right? He was like the cre. The creator of the universe is asking questions. The all knowing becomes the all asking.

Like, what is going on here? And so here we have Jesus telling stories, but sometimes he's leading people into.

Not the answer right away, but into a mystery, trusting the spirit to guide them in this mystery, weaving in supernatural encounters through it. And so that, that's kind of what formulated. Like, wow, what if we as communicators of the gospel could do what Jesus did?

And how might that change our communication style?

Aaron Santmyire: 00:12:22

Wow. So how did you just stumble in Tarot bang? I mean, I. Or was this part of your research into the book or.

Doug Witherup: 00:12:28

Yeah, I actually. So the first person that I heard use this was Bob Goff.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:12:32

Okay.

Doug Witherup: 00:12:33

And it was at a conference. It was a story. It was called a story conference. It was in Chicago. I got. I gotta tell you, the conference, like, it was a.

It was entitled, like subtitled A. I don't remember what, what. It was like something for creatives or. It was even a little more artsy than that. Artsy is the word that all use.

So like, okay, it was this very. It was this hyper artsy conference. I'll put it that way.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:13:00

Okay.

Doug Witherup: 00:13:01

And I love creativity artsy. I'm a little like, so.

So to give you a little bit of context, we were greeted by somebody playing an accordion, dressed in like 17th century German garb and like Those were the. That was the church greeter that morning. There was somebody on a unicycle in the lobby handing out little fruit. Fruit punch.

So this is the context of this. I'm like, I need something. I need something ground, like, give me. I need a preacher here.

But Bob Goff got up, and I'm sure a lot of your listeners are familiar with Bob, but he kind of mentioned an interrobang, and that just kind of sparked me, and I was googling it, I was sketching it. I was just kind of leaning into that metaphor.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:13:45

Man, I love it. I love it. So many of the listeners in. We've traveled in Africa and rather part of the world and got SIM cards. And so we know SIM cards well.

Now we're moved on to E. Sims. But you use this idea of SIM cards and for interbank preaching. Could you share some of those points? I love it.

It really highlights it, and it really stuck out to me. Will you share a little bit about it?

Doug Witherup: 00:14:07

Yeah. So I use a SIM card as just an acronym for story, image, and metaphor. And so what I kind of did is a little bit of a deep dive into Jesus parables.

So the parables, we know that they're stories, but I think there's a little more to them. So, like, even in the parable of the four soils, right, you have the four soils, which represent the heart condition. You have the.

The seed, which represents the word of God. You had the sower, which represents the preacher, the communicator. And so as Jesus is telling this story, he's standing in a field, right?

He's in Galilee. So if you read the surroundings, he's what? Like, what I tell people, like, Jesus is a children's pastor. He's using object lessons, right?

He's telling stories, he's using images. And yet there's an underlying metaphor. So again, it's the soils represent this. The seed represents this. And I think so. I think what happened? So.

So SIM card. I teach people, like when you're reading scripture. So. So sometimes. Let me explain it like this. Like, they'll say, wait a second.

So you're just telling. You're just telling stories and you're not preaching the word? I said, no, no, no, no. Not. It is. SIM card methodology is. Is deep exegetical preaching.

But you're harvesting. You're reading scripture. Not just for points, because that style of preaching didn't come on the scene until the 13th century.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:15:35

Okay?

Doug Witherup: 00:15:36

Right. So for the first thousand years of the church, they were doing what Jesus did. It was a miracle. Tell a story and lead people to lead people to Jesus.

So, okay, if we didn't come into, like this three point and sub point, and you know, you have your. And again, I'm not into. I'm like, I took a class with Haddon Robinson and these great.

These giants of the faith, but we got to remember they were preaching. They were preaching to a mindset that was crafted by modernity and the scientific method, right? And so that was the.

That was what people wanted, and that was how people understood information. But with post modernity really has a lot more to do with pre modernity. And if you go into the.

Even the neuroscience of it, our brains are hardwired for story. It's crazy. Like, you. You hook up our brain, and your seventh grade history teacher is going through the list of English monarchs in the 16th century.

You're clocking out at Thanksgiving, Your grandfather tells a story, and you leaned in. There's something about story, right, that we just. Well, there's a lot of neuroscience behind that.

Lisa Kron wrote a great book called Wired for Story. Wired for Story. And she just talks about. She's a neuroscientist, but just talks about how on a deeply neurological level that.

And this is what she says. She says our brains are hardwired for story. But then she says this. Our brains are rewired by story.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:17:08

Wow.

Doug Witherup: 00:17:09

And, you know, you think about that as a preacher of like, oh, my goodness, I'm not. This isn't just a cute illustration to close my talk, right? This is.

As you're telling a story, the Holy Spirit is literally rewiring the neurocircuitry of people's brains. And I just think like, hey, if Jesus did this. So again, you're not. You're not just telling stories.

You're harvesting the SIM card out of scripture and you're helping that story to come to life through moderate.

You're weaving modern stories, your story, the audience's story, the story of scripture, together with this interrobang, leading people on a mystery on a journey that the Holy Spirit is involved in. So that's what the SIM card is. It's story image, metaphor. And it's funny. That's what people remember. Or.

I'm sorry to feel like I'm hijacking here, but I'll tell you this quick story. So my.

In the first time I taught this on a doctoral level, I was all of, like, two days out of grad school or doctoral, so I don't know why I was teaching. So who's in my class. And some of your listeners will recognize this name. Rich Wilkerson Sr.

Is in the class, like probably one of the greatest preaching giants of our era. Right?

Aaron Santmyire: 00:18:30

Sure.

Doug Witherup: 00:18:31

A lot of people know Rich Jr too, from Vu. I mean this is like, like preaching family. So my methodology for that class was Pastor Rich, what do you think? Just share everything.

But Pastor Rich, even to this day, he'll say, I got my SIM card. I got my SIM card. So here was somebody that he just does. And I think a lot of great communicators do this naturally. They'll tell stories, right.

And they'll use story.

But there can be this, maybe we feel this, this push to, okay, I can do that in youth ministry, but now I'm in big church, so do I need to be a little more deep? And we think that deep means points. And I would just say that wasn't necessarily true of Jesus and it's not true neurologically.

So we can, my, my belief is we can teach and preach deep theology. Rich, Rich theology, deep word. But we use the vehicle of story to do that.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:19:41

No. And my assumption would be that it takes a lot of creative interview to do that.

As you talk about sharing stories and weaving that all in and teaching deep theology and would take a lot of creativity. So what have you found as you've grown in becoming a great storyteller? What have you learned makes a great storyteller?

Doug Witherup: 00:20:02

Boy, I will say that that's such a great question. For me, it was work. It was a lot of work, I would say, and not in a self disparaging way. But I'm not a naturally great storyteller.

So think of family gatherings or church lobbies. There's usually one person that they're, they're just a great storyteller. Right?

And they're the ones that you're, you're leaning into and you're laughing and you're, you're the person that you're out to eat with and they just, they always have a great story. And I always like, I suppose was a little bit jealous of that person. That's not me. I can be a little more introverted.

But so I just said, okay, well, how did God hardwire me? I am really curious and so I love to learn and I love to ask questions.

So I just said, okay, let me channel that into learning to become a better storyteller. So I would say like a couple of things that have helped me become a good storyteller is I think stories are all around us.

We just have to be intentional about recognizing those stories and then writing them down. Right. Mark Batterson says the. The shortest pencil is longer than the longest memory. And you think. We all think, oh, that'll be great.

That would be a great story in a. In a sermon. Because I think that preachers and communicators, we do it naturally. Right. Something happens with our kids.

We're like, oh, that's going to end up in a sermon. Or we're. We can't watch a movie without. We can't relax in a movie. Everything's. Everything's a sermon illustration. But then we end up forgetting it.

So I think whether that's typing it in on your phone, journaling it, but just being really intentional about having a list of stories that then when we're writing, our message is a go to. I tell people to take field trips in their own backyard. So, like, when I taught that doctoral class, it was at Ebenezer's in D.C.

the coffee shop at Mark Batterson's church. And so D.C. is like a SIM card. There's SIM cards everywhere. Right. There's just stories, image, metaphor, all over the place.

But I would say to the listeners, that's true in your town, too. Whether that's a small town. Like, I grew up in Kennerdale, Pennsylvania, population 241, but I'm in Charlotte now, a lot, lot bigger place.

But, like, you know, we've got the Billy Graham Library. We've got Reed Gold Gold Mine, which is where the first gold was discovered in America. Like, just wherever you live.

Google tourist attractions, because we tend not to. You know, people that live in Florida don't go to the beach. They don't go to Disney World unless people come from out of town.

But be intentional about being a tourist in your home, hometown. You'll find all kinds of fascinating stories, history, imagery that you can not.

It's not only interesting to your people, I think, because it's local, you're not telling somebody else's story. Right. You're telling. You're telling their story. Yeah. And. And then being intentional about writing those down. And then, I mean, honestly, I practice.

Right. Like, I practice telling stories in the car. I come in Saturday afternoon when nobody's in the auditorium, and I don't look weird.

And I practice telling stories and.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:23:30

Sure.

Doug Witherup: 00:23:30

And so it's been something, honestly, Aaron, that I've tried to work really hard at because I know it's important and I wanted to get better at it.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:23:38

Yeah. I appreciate the intentionality and I appreciate the points. I was I've always been a storyteller, Pastor Doug.

My problem is that I tend to make stories better than they originally were. So that's.

And so I have my wife that helps me, you know, bring it back in and perfect travel and itinerating as a missionary, you know, your stories, you know, so she. She brings it back in, says, yeah, you're getting a little bit on the edge on that story. You need to bring it back in. So that's. That's.

That's been some of my challenge. So when I was a kid, when I was a kid, I used to tell stories about crocodiles being in trees and alligators being in trees.

So anyway, it was obvious. Obviously, a big imagination.

Doug Witherup: 00:24:18

I love it. I feel like that needs to be in a sermon somewhere. Or maybe it has been. It should be.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:24:25

Hey, quick, another question I have for you. You talked about the importance of expectancy when we communicate. How do you help people that grasp come with a sense of expectancy?

When you're sharing, you're communicating, and you're sharing God's word.

Doug Witherup: 00:24:41

Boy, isn't that. Doesn't that mean so much? We've probably all had the experience of. Or a lot of us have had the experience. You certainly have.

Aaron is preaching the same message, prayed up just as much. You feel like you're just as ready. And in one context, it lands. And in another context, it's like, I feel like, right, God know. God knows.

But I didn't feel like that connected as well to the audience. At least I know you have. I think a lot of that has to do with what is the expectancy level of the audience.

So as a preacher, I view my job not only to cultivate the word, but to help cultivate the expectancy level of the soil. And I'll just. I think rather than teaching a series on expectancy, the way that I've done it is.

Is I've just looked for teachable moments, maybe during a worship transition, maybe during a point in the message. But, like, I know for me and Simon Sinek wrote the book, like, start with why. So I got to know. I got to know why.

Once I know why, I'm in, but I got to know why. So, like, if in my younger years, if I felt a preacher was just trying to hype me up, right?

And, like, get an amen out of me, I'm like, what are you doing? Are you manipulating my emotions? You know, I was like, had that college edge to me. Like, I'm gonna.

I'm gonna be a thinker and Critically think through this message. But. So I. But once I realized, like, amen is a word of agreement. So you are.

There is a deep spiritual truth of when you say the word amen, it just means so be it. So if all of God's promises are yes in Jesus, and so through him, the amen is spoken by us. Us. I'm like, how many promises of God am I missing? Like.

Or if I'm the wide receiver on a Sunday morning, they're just going through my hands. You know, I look like the Dallas Cowboys or something. Sorry. I don't know if there's Cowboys fans out there, but, like, those promises are just.

I'm missing because I'm not ready to receive those. Even in, like, Isaiah 55, when it talks about clapping your hands, clapping your hands in that passage is not a response to a song.

It's actually a response to the. The preached word of God, the declared word of God. So I think, like, just teaching people, hey, this is why you clap during a message.

It's not like, yay, preacher. It's not amen. Like, oh, we're. We're emotionally moved. It's like, man, God's got a promise for me, and I'm receiving this.

And so I think, like, just cultivating that, teaching the audience. I'm not singing a solo up here. This isn't. This is karaoke. This is everybody preaching. Preaching is a group, a team sport. And so.

And it's a whole lot more fun to preach to a connected audience, too. Right? So maybe there's a little selfishness in there, but really, I think at the heart of it is you want the audience.

At the end of the day, I've just been drawn so much to Second Corinthians 2, where Paul says, but among the spiritually mature, we did not. Not we. We do not impart wisdom of this world, but we impart a secret and hidden, hidden wisdom. And he uses that word impartation.

Like, I don't want there just to be a transfer of information. I want there to be a true impartation.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:28:23

Oh, for sure. It's a good word. You know, our. The leader of agwm, John Easter.

Doug Witherup: 00:28:28

Yeah.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:28:29

It's phenomenal. When he begins in that times of transition and times of communicating, he. He. He doesn't get in a hurry, right? He stops and he asks and he. He shares.

We feel the presence of Holy Spirit here, and I think his recognition of it is the communicator and not rushing through that and giving time.

It does create a sense of expectancy and even if you're distracted, because sometimes I would love to tell you I'm all zoned in, but I'm like a squirrel sometimes. But his ability to bring you back in and it creates a sense of the Holy Spirit is here, and if your heart's open, he's going to speak.

And I think it just sets the table. And. But when you. When you were writing about that man, it really jumped out to me that the.

Doug Witherup: 00:29:13

Yeah, that Aaron. If I might just throw in another example.

So I've got a great friend, Joe Phillips, who's a evangelist, and he'll begin his messages a lot of times with. If he.

If he's doing an altar call, he'll say, in 35 minutes, we're going to open up these altars and we're going to pray for people with physical ailments and God is going to heal people. That one statement that's good of, like, now you're leaning in the entire message of like, I can't wait to respond. Like.

And guys, in 35 minutes, these altars are going to be open. We're going to believe. For people who need a financial breakthrough. And you just. What have you done?

It's one line that you've created an expectancy then of now it's like, people, I can't wait till the preacher's done so I can leave. I can't wait till the preacher's done so I can get to that altar and meet with God.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:30:03

Just. Good word. Good word. One of the other things you write about is God's favorite shape. Could you.

Doug Witherup: 00:30:09

What is.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:30:09

What is God's favorite shape? And how did you land on that?

Doug Witherup: 00:30:12

Yeah, absolutely. So there's a verse in Proverbs that says, when God created the earth, when he established the heavens, that he drew a circle on the face of the deep.

And you start studying through Scripture and you'll find it's like. Like you never knew a Honda Pilot existed. And then you start looking for one to buy, and then every other person has a Honda Pilot, right?

So, like, once I heard this idea of, like, circles and spirals. I'll use the word spiral. I'm like, they're all through the Bible. A lot of the Psalms are written in a circular or spiral pattern, right?

You follow them and it's kind of that A, B, C, D, D prime, C prime, B prime, A prime. And it takes you in a circle. The entire book of Numbers is written that way.

So the second half of the book of Numbers mirrors the first half of the book of numbers, even like Genesis and Revelation. Genesis starts with a wedding in a garden, and Revelation re begins with a wedding in a garden.

So there's this whole idea of like, both in a literary way of taking people on a journey that I talk about. Like Lord of the Rings, I think, does this amazing. So, like Frodo and Sam, they begin in the Shire and they end or re.

Begin in the Shire, but they've gone, but they're not. So they end up in the same place, but they're not the same person. And so there's something about. There's something about a spiral or a sphere.

There's something called the Fibonacci spiral in nature. And Fibonacci was an Italian mathematician that he. He did this whole.

It's really fascinating, but the golden ratio in mathematics, and then he overlaid that on some things in nature. So sunflowers grow in a spiral. Nautical shells grow in a spiral. Entire galaxies grow in a spiral. So I just. I think there's something to that.

When God established the heavens, he drew a circle on the face of a deep. Just in preaching. Let me just get. I can nerd out on this stuff. And it's like, what is. What does this have to do with preaching?

There's something deeply satisfying about taking your listeners on a journey and ending up where you began.

So, for instance, that can be as practical as you start with a story, tell part of a story, and so you're leaving on a little bit of a cliffhanger, preach your message, and then you come back to that story at the end. Not only have you created a gap in knowledge, which is what causes us to be interested. So George Lowenstein did 50.

He took 50 years of the psychology of curiosity, and he just said, hey, what causes us to be interested? And basically he says it's when we don't know something that there's a gap in knowledge. And then he said this. This line was really interesting.

He wasn't talking to preachers, but he said most communicators tend to close gaps before we open them. So instead of just telling all the story at the beginning, leave a gap there. You think of some of the shows that have done this beautifully.

I know it's a little bit older, but 24. Remember, like Kiefer, they would have a way of ending on. There's like these three mysteries, and they would close one loop and open another, and.

And we end up. I mean, not just that, but we end up binge watching how many Netflix shows because they're brilliant at that, but so, yeah, that.

Just that taking people on a spiral journey, landing the plane where you started it. There's something deeply. Comedians are great at this. A lot of times their final joke will be like a boom of where they started out, and they're just.

You feel satisfied. You're like, I, I, I've been to church today. Or I've been, you know, I, I was at a good comedy event.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:34:09

Sure. Yeah. Michael, Michael Jr. He's phenomenal. Yes, he is phenomenal at that. That, that spiral, for sure.

Doug Witherup: 00:34:17

Yeah.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:34:17

I got one or two more questions for you. When we look at Elijah's life, you write about him. How does it guide us in the increased anointing for preaching?

Doug Witherup: 00:34:26

Yeah. So when Elisha. Elisha followed Elijah, he asked the story was, I just, I want a double portion. And the requirement there was.

It was a hefty one, right. Like, you gotta see me go to heaven. You gotta see me.

And so it just that idea of if Elisha really wanted that, there had to be an intentional pursuit, I believe, of a mentor who has a mantle.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:34:53

Wow.

Doug Witherup: 00:34:54

And even as I was thinking about this, I got a little bit convicted of, Of.

Boy, when I was 20, some, you know, when I was a young preacher, I wouldn't hesitate to ask an older preacher to pray for me, just like, I want some of that. Right. Like I want some of that mantle.

But now that I've been in this a few years, boy, I was asking myself, do I let pride get in the way of why wouldn't I continue to ask people to pray for me?

I do remember several years ago, I was at a meeting and Pastor Tommy Barnett was there again, one of just the great preaching giants and great pastors of a movement of a generation. But we happened to be staying at the same hotel, and it was in Florida, and it was in the early evening.

And so, of course, you can set your watch in Florida by the rain. And so there was a 3:00. I mean, just torrential rain. And we just happened to be walking, walking to the same movie.

And I remember just seeing him across the parking lot and being like, I want Pastor Tommy to pray for. I'm like, running through the rain. And I've got this picture of us afterwards. I'm drenched, and I was like, pastor Tommy, would you just pray for me?

Like, I just, I want some of what you got. But again, I got, I got convicted of, like, oh, Doug, when was the last time you did that?

Like, when was the last time you sought out a mentor that has a mantle? That you just want part of that mantle and ask them. I think there is, you know, Paul talks about.

There's something about that gift that, that is stirred up within us through the laying on of hands. So. Yeah.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:36:35

Good word. Good word. So who is, who do you. Are there preachers you listen to? Are there. You're a communicator.

Who are some preachers that you've enjoyed sitting under, learning from? I'll share one. One of mine when we. Or one or two of mine. We get after you year.

Doug Witherup: 00:36:52

Yeah, absolutely. So one. One of the guys I mentioned was Joe, Joe Phillips. He's just a great storyteller humor. But, but he's deep too.

I, that's what I, I love depth with. With story. Yeah. And my, I mean this is, this is an. Of course. But I mean I just think he's the prince of preachers right now. Is, is Stephen Furt.

I just, I could listen to him for hours. I think the way that he weaves story and depth together. And then Pastor Stephen has a way of. He's almost like a counselor too.

He has a way of reaching inside of people's emotions and you feel like he's talking about what you're going through, but not like just talking about your situation, talking about how you feel when you go through the situation. So he's preaching to literally what, 25,000 live millions of people around the world. And you're like, he's talking to me.

So it's just a, there's a gift there that's, that's pretty amazing. Yeah, he's probably, probably my favorite. You mentioned yours.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:38:14

So, you know, growing up as a kid, you know, one our. We had a pastor at a home church, Gary Butler. He was the best Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night preacher.

You know, it's one thing to communicate, you know, I'm a missionary and as you said, you travel and it's good to have three or four good sermons, but to be able to communicate on a consistent basis over a period of time. And you've done it. You've been a pastor for eight years, same church for 20 plus years. So you, you know, you've had to do that over consistency. Him.

The other one, another one is Wayne Blackburn in Lakeland. He's Sunday, Sunday morning Sunday. He, you know, he, it's, it's anointed preaching and a consistent basis.

Anyway, those are just two of them that, you know, I've sat under as a pastor that I've really valued their investment in my life and have helped me grow in God's word and helped me grow in my spiritual maturity. And so, as you said, we're thankful for those and people. I've listened.

I listened to 20 or 30 podcasts a week, so I listened to a lot of preachers that way, but the ones I've actually sat, taken notes. Yeah, it's good. It's good stuff.

Doug Witherup: 00:39:20

It's good stuff. Absolutely. And you mentioned it, but they were bringing the mail three times a week.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:39:25

Yeah.

Doug Witherup: 00:39:26

Yes.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:39:27

It's. It's. It's a different. It's a different. It's a different thing. So it's a different thing to be able to do. Prepare.

And as you said, as pastors, you have so many things pulling for, pulling at you, but to be able to prepare three times a week is. Is something. So, Pastor Doug, is there a question I should have asked you before, Before I ask you to pray? Is there something you think, man?

Aaron, if you were a good podcast host, you would have asked me this about a terabyte preaching.

Doug Witherup: 00:39:50

Oh, my goodness. I think. I mean, you nailed it. The only, the only other thing that I would mention, and you, in our pre. Conversation, you mentioned it.

So if I could just throw this in. I talk about preaching out of the Jefferson Bible.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:40:09

That's it.

Doug Witherup: 00:40:10

And if I wouldn't have been so long on my other answers briefly. So what Thomas Jefferson did is he loved the morals of scripture, but he didn't believe in the miracles of scripture.

So he literally cut and paste and he created. You can, you can. I've got a copy of one on my bookshelf. It's called the Jefferson Bible, and it's just all of the morals of scripture.

And I, I heard that, and I thought, you know, theologically that is probably appalling to most evangelicals. But then I got real convicted and I said, you know, if I don't intentionally create space in our services. You talked about Pastor John Easter, Dr.

Easter, doing this, intentionally creating space for the supernatural, the miraculous. I said, I might as well be preaching out of the Jefferson Bible.

Like, yes, I say I believe in miracles, but where is the space in our weekly services? Because we've done away with Wednesdays and Sunday, Sunday nights. And look, I don't want to go back.

So I'm not, I'm not arguing for that, but that's just been a real conviction of mine over the years, is making sure. Making sure on Sunday morning God has space to show up and move.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:41:40

Good word. Good word. Pastor Doug, will you pray for us?

Doug Witherup: 00:41:44

Absolutely. God, thank you for the listeners thank you.

For people that are hungry to learn and grow, I pray even though they may not be preachers or the primary communicator, we all communicate.

And so whether it's leading a meeting, whether it's talking to our spouse or our children, co workers, other contacts in ministry, leading a small group, we're all communicators.

So I pray just an increased anointing and a mantle would be transferred and imparted in Jesus name that their communication would increase in its abundance, increase in its in the way that it lands, and that the kingdom of God and that the word of God would be furthered so that your church can multiply in Jesus name. Amen.

Aaron Santmyire: 00:42:38

Amen.